One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.)
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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Book Reviews of One Hundred Years of Solitude (P.S.)
Book Review: Pure Drivel
Summary: 1 Stars
I absolutely detested and despised this book. Some masochistic bent made me finish it, like some sort of martyr. I read well over one hundred books a year, so it's not like I'm some dodo right out of the beanfield who's never read a book before and can't judge its merits. There are certainly many instances when, even though a book may not be to my taste, I can see its artistic merits, and why people would like it. Not so in this case--I can find no redeeming value to this drivel.
I found this book to be pseudo-intellectual psycho-babble. The style really annoyed me. If it was supposed to be "magical realism", then why were the magical parts thrown in like after-thoughts every 50 pages or so? For the most part, I forgot about the "magical" part until another reference came again from out the blue, with absolutely no connection to anything else, at least in my opinion.
Worst of all, many of the characters have similar-sounding names. I tried keeping them straight, then realized that was a waste of time since I didn't give a damn about any one of them, no matter what they were called. First rule of writing: give the reader at least one character to care about. The writing was done in an "arms-length" style, which did not allow me to get emotionally involved in the least with any of these characters, or care one whit about anything that happened to them.
I can't remember another book that was actually torture for me to get through, but this one definitely was.
It must have been a VERY slow year for Nobel Prizes when this dreck won.
Book Review: More than a love story, this is a work of art
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my second favorite book of all time (the first is One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Años de Soledad Spanish Version) by the same author). It tells the story of lovesick Florentino, who has waited for the love of his life, Fermina, for 50 years. Fermina was married to Dr. Juvenal Urbino and therefore unavailable. Their love story began through letters. But then Fermina rejects Florentino because she feels their relationship was naive. She is forced to marry Dr. Urbino by her father. When Dr. Urbino dies, Florentino comes back into Fermina's life and tells her he has waited for her all these years. Then, their correspondence continues and their love grows again.
Garcia Marquez has written an amazing love story that employs elements of magical realism. This only make the story better and even more amazing. This love story is as no other, and only Garcia Marquez could have written such an amzing book. The characters are so well written that they come alive in the pages of this book.
I read the book in Spanish and I reccommend that if you understand Spanish, to read this book in its original language. Although the English translation is good, I feel the Garcia Marquez touch, the "it" that makes this story what it is may get lost in the translation.
This is a book that everyone should read and I cannot reccommend it enough.
Book Review: Excellent, but not typical of Marquez.
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm one of those who found One Hundred Years of Solitude fascinating and enjoyable. The style definitely made it for me; Marquez's prose is misty and mythic in a beautifully descriptive way. I never lost interest in the story. It's told in an unusual manner, more like an oral history or legend than a written work. After reading it, I could see why Marquez is called the "South American Faulkner"; the style in One Hundred Years of Solitude can only be compared to a book like The Sound and the Fury. I have called it misty, but it's deeper than that. The haze over Macondo is analogous to the haze of memory itself. I was thoroughly satisfied and amazed by the book. For me to attempt further description of its marvelous intricacies would be to rob you of the full joy of reading it.
I was disappointed, though, when I sampled some of Marquez's other works. In Evil Hour failed to hold my attention at all, and the only novel that has even come close was Love in the Time of Cholera. Marquez was a good author and journalist, but he didn't have the consistency to maintain the style he achieved in One Hundred Years of Solitude. I would wholeheartedly recommend OHYoS to anyone interested in this book or this author, but I would simultaneously warn him or her not to expect to find another book like it. Perhaps it's best that way.
Book Review: Colombian Gold
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great work of the imagination and one of the best novels I've ever read.
The Influence of William Faulkner is apparent in only the best way -- Garcia Marquez has his own original vision and an endless amount of creativity, but he obviously took inspiration for his mythical town of Macondo from Faulkner's invention of Yoknapatawpha County, to create his own microcosmic South America on a biblical scale populated with brutally real people in fantastic situations born of 'the human heart in conflict with itself', which bluntly reveal man (and woman) struggling with and against nature, tradition, family ties, their own secrets including incest (both imagined and acted upon), repetition of family names symbolically conjuring cycles of family flaws and curses, country, God, and various related antagonists; though Garcia Marquez adds an element of magic that Faulkner did not indulge in, and is much more willing to directly explore the nature of women and sexuality, and is more judicious than Faulkner in his use of endlessly rambling sentences, which Garcia Marquez uses sparingly but to great effect in the last five chapters, particularly for a long rant against her lazy husband by the character Fernanda which goes on a couple of hilarious pages.
Keeping up with the names and characters can be a little confusing, but if you liked Faulkner's 'Absalom, Absalom!' you will love this book.
Breathtaking and unpredictable to the very last word.
Book Review: Thank God for that Family Tree
Summary: 4 Stars
This is another book I admired more than enjoyed. The term "magic realism" has been coined to describe it, but what Garcia Marquez does, is akin to what Kafka and Joyce have done, but in a style less concise than the former, and less abstract than the latter. He tells the fantastic tale of Macondo and the Buendia family in the most sober of styles, offering up surrealism as part family portrait and part Latin American history.
The repetition of names serves as a device to hermetically seal off the Buendias from the rest of society, thus ensuring their solitude. It can be overwhelming at times, and I frequently had to refer to the family tree to get my bearings. Each member of the clan has unique strengths or attributes, as well as fatal flaws, that isolate them from others. The Buendias seem to be in constant struggle, either with themselves, with the rules of society, or with the natural world in the form of ants, scorpions, and torrential rains that last for almost 5 years. The alchemic quest, the transmutation of the dross into the sublime, seems to be a running theme.
Garcia Marquez is very adept at descriptive imagery, but it seems overused at points. I never felt empathy with any character. There is a lack of pathos in this novel. Outrageous humor is in my opinion, one of the chief qualities of this novel, and probably it's greatest strength, more so to me than the surrealism and obvious symbolism.